


Shot to the Heart (and Other, Less Romantic Parts of the Human Anatomy)

by schweinsty



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Blanket Permission, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23661673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweinsty/pseuds/schweinsty
Summary: The aftermath of a day gone wrong, in which Arthur gets wise to something and Eames gets  stitches.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 100
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic





	Shot to the Heart (and Other, Less Romantic Parts of the Human Anatomy)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cozy_coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cozy_coffee/gifts).



> Written for a prompt on the comment-fic community over on livejournal. Mostly an excuse for some soft, hurt/comfort fluff. It could probably use some more tightening up, but I've hardly written anything in three-ish years, so hope y'all enjoy it either way :).

They make it to the hotel on their own power, barely. Arthur's bleeding, still, though sluggishly, from his arm and his ribs and a cut running two inches long on the side of his neck, and Eames is leaning heavily on him, horizontal only in the very loosest sense of the word. They skip the desk with the nosy receptionist, jimmying open the stairwell door and climbing up in favor of a possible call to her brother, the chief of police. Eames is listing like a yacht that's fought a battle with a submarine and lost, and his breaths land heavy on the patch of hair just behind Arthur's ear. His free hand jabs, now and then, at Arthur’s bruised ribs, though Arthur guesses it’s supposed to be a reassuring pat.

“I got you,” he mumbles periodically in the direction of Arthur’s temple, and then “You’re all right, Arthur,” dropping the ‘t’ on ‘right’ increasingly the farther up the stairs they get.

He stops them, sometimes, when he trips on the steps. He stops and grabs at Arthur and doesn’t ease up until Arthur says, “We’re fine,” and then, laboriously, they start back up.

"Door," Arthur says when they reach their suite, because he's fairly certain Eames will walk straight into it if he doesn't. He fumbles in his pockets for his key card; it's awkward, what with blood-slick hands and Eames, who's got a solid forty, fifty pounds on him, hanging heavier on his shoulder by the minute, but he digs the card out, jams it in the key slot, and knocks the door open with one knee while he sets the other and hauls Eames' just-this-side-of-dead weight forward.

They stumble in, and thank God it's only four steps to the bed, because Arthur lurches through three of them, heaves Eames off his shoulder, and stiff-arms him the last length so he makes it onto it without further injury, albeit with more groaning and less grace than is usual for him.

“Y’r righ’,” he slurs, then shuts his eyes and goes entirely slack.

Arthur leans over his knees and works on catching his breath until his head stops spinning.

"I've got the room," he says, needlessly, after a moment.

If Eames is conscious, he doesn't show it, but Arthur's gratified to see his chest rising steady and deep. Arthur checks the windows first, makes sure the sightlines from the roofs nearby are clear and draws the heavy curtains shut. He briefly considers pushing the desk in front of the door but jams a chair under the knob, instead.

Eames hasn't moved, but he's doing as fine as can be expected for a man who left a job mid-heist, pulled four all-nighters in one week, and then mounted a solo assault on a heavily-guarded ranch house on an isolated two-hundred acre ranch in hundred-and-ten degree heat.

Arthur would actually be pissed at Eames if Eames hadn’t been rescuing him.

As it is, his fingers itch to do something productive, and his stomach feels uncomfortably weightless when he catches Eames’s body out of the corner of his eye.

“We’re good,” he says when he’s sure the nearby area’s clear of hostiles. He doubted anyone's coming after them, seeing how Eames blew up the entire goddamn ranch after they got out, but it's best to take care.

He grabs the extra sheet for the sofa bed from out of the closet, head going uncomfortably light when he stretches, and grabs the pocket knife he filched from Eames from out of his pocket to tear it up. “Just got to fix you up.”

He doesn’t know what it is about Eames that he feels compelled to keep him updated even when he’s passed out. He never talked to himself before. Eames likes to be clear on things, whatever they’re at, same way Arthur does.

Well. Same way in results. The actions they take to get there--those, they go about in quite differently.

Arthur has to manhandle Eames out of his shirt and pants. Eames is built, for all he’s got a trim waist, solid muscle on his arms and thighs, and grappling his dead weight carefully enough that none of his wounds reopen is harder than it sounds, even without Arthur’s own state, which is, well. Less than optimal.

He manages, eventually, and is gratified to see that most of Eames’s injuries are shallow cuts; the one potentially worrying stab wound went into the meat of his shoulder. It’ll ache for weeks, but it didn’t hit an artery and Eames’s fingers moved just fine, post-stab, when he picked the lock on the handcuffs around Arthur’s ankles, so that’s--that’s good.

Arthur cleans it out, of course, quick as he can. Eames wakes up partway through but, aside from a few hisses, barely twitches throughout, but he groans and bats Arthur’s hand away with a reassuringly coherent “Off,” when Arthur pats him on the chest.

Arthur’s head swims when he stands, but he waits a second and it passes, and Eames has his eyes screwed shut against the light again so Arthur doesn’t think he notices. “Sewing kit?”

"Tac vest," Eames mumbles. "Top right."

It’s not, like most of Eames’s other gear, a specially-designed kit; it’s just a small, black kevlar wallet with a proper needle, medical-grade silk thread, and a couple sheets of butterfly stitches; and next to it, nestled in a kevlar holder, is a plastic syringe labeled with the name of a local anaesthetic--but not a generic; a brand name normally used for wisdom teeth removals, instead.

Arthur’s stomach flips.

The stitching goes quickly. It’s not Arthur’s first rodeo, and Eames is remarkably complaisant, letting Arthur help him sit up against a pillow and watching with heavy-lidded eyes as Arthur waits for the anaesthetic to kick in and sets to work.

“Sensorcaine-MPF,” Arthur says after he threads the needle. “What, did you break into a dental clinic?”

Eames’s lips curl up. Just for a second. “Orthodontist’s.”

There’s a scar near the stab wound, old enough it’s faded pale white, deep enough Arthur can feel the bump clearly when his fingers brush over it. Arthur’s never seen it before.

“Orthodontist, of course,” he says, more to distract Eames when the needle goes in than to fill the silence. His head feels heavy again, achy, but his hands are still steady enough, and he ties the first stitch off. His stomach’s still fluttery, though he can’t blame that entirely on damage from his recent kidnapping. That’s would be the Sensorcaine. “You weren’t on the job,” he mutters, and doesn’t look Eames in the eye. “In Vienna, last time I got stitched up.”

The scar on Eames’s shoulder’s about three inches long. Too wide for a stab, but it must have been a deep cut when he got it. They’ve been naked around each other, technically, twice out of the four times they’ve slept together, but they haven’t either of them lingered. Arthur didn’t think it was that sort of thing. Wasn’t sure it was, anyway.

But Eames, in the middle of planning his one-man rescue mission, went to the trouble of finding an orthodontist’s office in the middle of nowhere to steal a specific anaesthetic from, just in case Arthur needed to be patched up after the rescue, because generic lidocaine gives Arthur hives.

“You know how Yusuf likes to talk,” Eames says, smothering a yawn.

To you, maybe, Arthur thinks, but he ducks his head over his work with a noncommittal “Hmm.”

Four hookups spread out over two jobs in the last three months, first time they’ve seen each other since Dom retired. He doesn’t even know all of Eames’s scars, yet. It shouldn’t mean much. Shouldn’t mean anything. They haven’t even talked about it.

He can’t help it, though, and looks up when he ties off the last stitch, sees this soft, stupid smile on Eames’s bloody, grimy face, and he’s seized by a feeling of overwhelming warmth. His face gets hot, and he thinks, _Huh,_ and then _Jesus, I think my rib’s broken, what a stupid time to realize this_. And then he straightens up and his head swims and he almost faceplants off the bed, and Eames catches him with his good arm and curses.

“Arthur,” Eames says through gritted teeth, and Arthur’s going to have to check his ribs when he sorts himself out tomorrow, just in case, but--but that’s tomorrow. “Darling,” and there’s a lot in the way he says it. Maybe. Arthur’s going to ask. He’ll ask about the scar on his shoulder, too.

Eames shifts, sort of squeedgies himself across the pillow so there’s space on the bed beside him and gently pulls Arthur down to it. “Come to bed.”

“All right,” Arthur says, and drops down without kicking off his shoes. He settles in, stretches out his right hand so it crosses his body and rests on Eames’s chest, and something settles in him, deep and low and warm. “Go to sleep, Mr. Eames.”

There’ll be time enough to talk later. Time enough for a lot more laters, maybe, after that.

For now, he shuts his eyes and lets Eames’s steady breathing drift him off.


End file.
